These are some hypothetical reworks and changes for the various legends that I've been brainstorming over the last little while. The fundamental idea here is inspired by how drastic Mirage's buffs were, in particular the invisibility while reviving is something I'd have read on a fan concept thread and dismissed because the idea was too strong, and yet here it is in game and that brought me to the idea driving these brainstorms.

Legends deserve strengths.

If you read any of the ideas I've jotted down here and find yourself going "that's too strong," that's nearly entirely the point. While powercreep is a very valid concern, I think it's easier to figure out strengths, assess whether those strengths are healthy, and then dial some elements back.

The purpose of this also isn't to tell respawn what they should do, OR to argue that my designs are the objective best, so much it is to spark some discussion.

I'm much more interested in what your ideas are than where mine could use work. (That's not me saying "well you do better," it's genuine curiosity with fan designs. In tabletop communities I love homebrew content. This is just an extension of such.)

Octane

Jump Pad
Deploys faster to account for a stimmed octane's running speed.

A
Stim
Provides immunity to slows, concussions, and stuns from enemy and allied abilities and removes the falling stun for falling from long distances. The first use of stim also doesn't cost health, but subsequent uses will.

B
Passive
Octane does not suffer slows from falling long distances or taking bullet damage.

Stim
Stim goes on a longer cooldown, but also lasts for significantly longer and provides total immunity to stuns, slows, concussions, and provides a rapid health regeneration for its duration.

C
Experimental Passive
Octane can pick up and carry downed allies.

Rationale:
No more running over the jump pad before its active and then getting launched back as you move back to try again.

I think Octane's speed demon personality is a perfect fantasy that has too many roadblocks in game currently. Giving him fall stun immunity provides some moment to moment fluidity that I'm certain will be felt in game, especially when comparing his play to other legends, but moreover the ability to ignore stuns I think can make him a deceptively important character, especially when dealing with characters like Caustic and Wattson.

Idea A provides these bonuses while he's stimmed and retains but mitigates the health damage downside. The downside is one of the major problems in the way of Octane pulling off aggressive plays in my opinion, so reducing that penalty could go a ways to making Octane fulfill his fantasy a little better.

In the other direction however, for Idea B. Stim providing a burst of rapid health regeneration could give him the ability to use it in preparation for taking damage and as an in combat buff, or as a means of escape while a longer cooldown would mean Octane would have more choices about how to use it. I'm not sure if rapid mid combat healing is something RS wants to put in the game, as the only combat healing currently is Wattson's shield generator which has a very slow effect. Still it could be considered. Should this change occur Octane's health regeneration passive would change to accommodate, providing the less impactful half of his resistance to effects that slow him.

Idea C is more musing about what it would take to include carrying downed allies in the game. Elephants in the room. This WILL be used to grief teammates. In my opinion, there are enough ways to grief teammates currently that this doesn't change much if anything. Community moderation tools are needed. However beyond that consideration, I think this could be a really cool way to handle an Octane providing team support. Jump pad can already be a powerful getaway tool for downed squadmates, and I think this is especially thematic in that it allows Octane, the speed demon who never wants to stand still, to not stand still.

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Lifeline

Passive
Fast use consumable health items removed. Lifeline can now move at full speed including sprinting while using healing items.

Resurrection shield has a vertical curve that protects a bit from above and below. Lifeline revives allies with extra health.

New Ultimate
Lifeline deploys DOC with an emergency protocol. While the ultimate is active DOC provides rapid combat healing in an extended range to only friendly team members. If an ally is downed, Lifeline can direct DOC to begin an automated revive that takes longer to complete and ends the healing function of DOC.

Rationale:
RS has said that Lifeline is top-tier right now and I believe it. She has fast healing and her DOC provides a smoother experience with inventory management considering you need to carry fewer syringes and meds. With that said, I think she's *boring,* and maybe I'm wrong but I'm certain most of her power is tied up in her fast healing. It provides so much more speed and consistency to a match.

Removing it feels like a bit of a necessary evil, but I also feel like I'm replacing it with something that's at least AS powerful. Healing while moving at full speed is if anything just an idea and I'm not married to removing fast heal, I like it a lot too. I'm not going to argue that this rework concept is a sidegrade in terms of power which would be the most ideal. It's a buff on almost every access except her loot management, which lets be honest aside from the occasional purple shield was utter garbage anyway. Hello shield cells, purple knockdown shield, and purple shotgun bolt. The hope is that she can be given a unique and fun playstyle and then figure out what needs to be dialed back and how, also. If the rest of the roster increases in strength as most of the changes here are supposed to do, I think the impact of Lifeline's buffs could be softened.

The res shield and res health buffs are meant to provide greater safety and incentive to reviving allies, and a greater impact for pulling a revive off. This will also make her stronger in running from the ring scenarios which she already excels at.

Finally her ultimate, is an automatic revive or a super buffed version of her tactical to really hone in on her *combat* medic fantasy. I think blue loot bins can be comfortably removed were this implemented.

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Caustic

Passive
Caustic can shatter doorways with a single melee attack.

Existing passives folded into the NOX Gas tactical.

Rationale:
Caustic's passive feels similar to Crypto's, the idea of this change is to give him a real passive that will be felt in every game. Again, not married to it but I do think it fits with his horror movie tropes, and dominance in indoor fights.

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Crypto

Drone
Activating the tactical ability will have Crypto quickly deploy the drone in place, without interrupting his movement. The drone will sit in place looking where Crypto was when he deployed it.

Crypto can then reactive his tactical ability to enter the drone. Crypto can active his EMP while it's recalled. He will drop the drone in place when activated. He still does not have immunity to shield damage from his EMP.

Rationale:
A simple quality of life change that I think will go a long way to improving how Crypto feels to play. Increasing the speed of entering and exiting the drone may be necessary but separating the mandatory phase of entering the drone when deploying it will I think make Crypto more keen to have it out and reposition it faster.

I still think Crypto needs a real passive but I can't think of what that should be. I've heard the ability to hack and reuse respawn beacons, but I don't think having passives that rely on being downed or killed is very good design which is why I support abilities like Lifeline, and Mirage being as strong as they currently are, or having those passive in addition to others. Still, it's not a bad place to start from where he currently sits.

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Bloodhound

Tactical
Reduce the intensity of the visual effect.

Beast of the Hunt
Move the timer to the bottom of the screen like Revenant's death totem protection. Add the Hunt's additional duration on executions, and assists.

A
Make Bloodhound's scan a rectangular lane that extends forward from them, slightly increase the duration of reveal.

B
Tactical
Drastically reduce the radius of the scan and increase the scan speed.

Drastically reduce the cooldown of the scan.

Rationale:
Bloodhound's passive is perfect, and their ultimate is almost there. Beast of the Hunt is an enormous powerspike, but fights last so much longer than it can provide support for. And while it's predominantly a player mistake, the feeling of invincibility that accompanies the speed often leads one to take enormous damage upfront which then requires Bloodhound to spend a majority of Beast of the Hunt's duration healing from damage.

Bloodhound's tactical is still a hit or miss ability. I won't argue that it is extremely useful, but at times it can create an enormous amount of visual noise, its cone can narrowly miss enemies a few degrees to the wrong side of your squad, and the enemy sonar reveal, even at a full four seconds can be hard to find when enemies are below or above you. Add to that sometimes enemy traps are often pinged and revealed as "hostiles," and Bloodhound's scan can sometimes add more confusion than it alleviates.

There are two ideas that compete. One is based on the idea that Bloodhound is an extraordinarily unsubtle legend. Enormous sound cues on every ability plus the light show that can be spotted from a distance and the notification that appear when you get scan mean that enemies are usually aware of Bloodhound, and the shorter range shorter cooldown version of Bloodhound's tactical hones in on this. It's an ability meant to provide consistent team utility throughout a fight and so the visual clutter would *need* to be reduced. I'm thinking about a cooldown of 10-15s to be used multiple times during fights and provide a constant feeling of unease to enemy squads fighting Bloodhound. Like they're being constantly watched by a hunter. I'll admit Bloodhound is among my top favourite characters, and so my personal bias leans towards this change.

The forward rectangular scan is more in line with their current design; to provide Bloodhound with more information for initiating fights, but also to account for some of the mentioned frustrations. It would mean more area is scanned, and if I were brave enough I'd suggest a radial scan extending from Bloodhound at the center, but that would be more than double the area that is currently scanned.

Revenant

Death Totem
While in death protection Revenant (and only Revenant) can climb infinitely.

Rationale: I'm sure infinite climb is a development nightmare, but I think having a character who can reach some of the places Pathfinder can with his zipline is important. Revenant's higher climb is an extremely character defining ability which is great, but having experienced the Halloween event is comparatively disappointing. Giving him this situational power boost is intended to allow his Death Totem to feel a little more like an ultimate ability.

Pathfinder

Zipline accuracy increased for all legends on all weapons.

Rationale:
I think the G7 accuracy nerf on ziplines and in mid air was the opposite direction things should have gone. The zipline provides Pathfinder and his teams access to defensive fortifications that no other team can have and breaking those sieges is nigh impossible because of how much your ability to return fire disappears when you're pushing a Pathfinder's fortification using his zipline. This is not a nerf or a buff necessarily because it would also mean Pathfinder can use his zipline more aggressively which would incentivize (I think) Pathfinder not to use his zipline to create unreachable fortifications as often. The reality is that Pathfinder was enormously game warpingly powerful and still is. If the other legends were to increase in strength I think it's conceivable that power could be reintroduced to Pathfinder, but personally I don't see any hypothetical change I've brainstormed here unseating Pathfinder as the single most powerful legend on the roster.

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Bangalore

Rationale:
Bangalore needs something and I'm not sure what. Her tactical and passive are both so tightly designed that it's hard to find space to do something with her. I think perhaps the fact that her smoke has equal chance to provide positive or negative effects to her team should be looked at, maybe with changes to how Digital Threats function.

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Loba

Rationale:
Okay, so Loba just released and I'm not going to argue that she *needs* anything. But I find her personally unfun to play for a few reasons. Her tactical can only teleport her onto solid surfaces and she doesn't have the ability to *not* teleport to it once it's in mid air. I think there's a case to be made that if the other legends increase in power that Loba might deserve a slight lovetap too, and that might include the ability to move faster while her ring is in the air, cancel a jump, or teleport into mid air. Especially considering the amount of prices she pays for her mobility at the moment, mainly through her vulnerability before and after her jump. Both are 110% fair prices because it's an extremely powerful ability, as is her Black Market. But I think she could still stand to feel a little smoother, even if it comes at the cost of a longer cooldown. I'm not gonna die on this hill, but I felt a twinge of disappointment over Loba.

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Gibraltar

Dome shield may deserve some duration back if other legends receive such significant buffs.

Wattson

You could easily tweak the amount of nodes she can carry at once or the speed at which they recharge to add strength if necessary.

Wraith

Maybe she could get a voice notification when Bloodhound starts tracking her.

Mirage

I think enemies who pop a decoy should be briefly highlighted the way Crypto and Bloodhound do, just slightly more readable than the icons that appear and provides a hair of team utility, which is the direction he seems to fit well within considering his passive.

Rationale:
I thinkthe four legends above would require the least to be brought into line with the rest of the changes I've offered. Lovetaps arguably, but few if any functional changes.